The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to system and method for reducing artifacts and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to system and method for reducing artifacts of lenticular imaging.
Generally speaking, lenticular printing is a technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles. Examples of lenticular printing include animation effects and modern advertising graphics that change their message depending on the viewing angle. This technology was created in the 1940s but has evolved in recent years to show more motion and increased depth.
Over the past several years various commercial lenticular software products have become available, and these programs all tend to address the creation of interlaced lenticular files. Existing lenticular printing processes introduce a host of problems in the form of moire, banding, checkerboard patterning, ghosting, and blurry images.
Few methods and system have been developed to overcome these problems. For example, International Application No. PCT/IL2008/000237 filed Feb. 25, 2008 describes a method for de-ghosting a multi image display having at least one image and a first image separating mask. The method comprises displaying a calibration pattern through an image separating mask, allowing a visual estimation of a blurring artifact brought about by a second image separating mask, and processing the at least one image according to the visual estimation, thereby reducing a ghosting artifact brought about at least by the first image separating mask. The first and second image separating masks having a substantially similar optical profile.
U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2009/0109490 published on Apr. 30, 2009 describes the generation of an image that comprises a plurality of interlaced images. The image is halftone processed according to one or more processes, and printed, for example, using an inkjet printer. The halftoning is performed according a predetermined function depending at least in part on a gray scale level for a given pixel and those nearby the given pixel. The predetermined function can operate on a continuous tone version or on a printed-dot model of the image and may include a predetermined error filter where error is distributed to pixels corresponding to the same interlaced image from which the error accumulates. The image may be post-processed to arrange dots and/or shift columns of pixels to minimize overlap error or modified to include extra pixels to align the interlaced images under the lenses.